Brynn nodded. “We’re friends, too. I don’t see there being any issue with me behaving strictly as your friend tonight.”
Relief coursed through Hallie. This was good. They could do this. Balance their platonic and romantic feelings while they figured out what exactly was going on between them. She nodded, committed to seeing her part through. “I can do the same.”
Brynn extended her hand. “Shake on it?”
Hallie rolled her eyes but pushed her hand forward, ready to shake. But when their fingertips connected, Brynn grabbed her hand and lifted it to her mouth, kissing Hallie’s knuckles. “Starting now,” she said when she let go of Hallie’s hand.
As Hallie made her exit down the hallway, she chanced a look back. From the desk, Brynn gave her a playful smile that made Hallie wonder whether or not they’d actually be able to pull this one off.
They were absolutely not going to be able to pull this one off.
That became abundantly clear as Hallie sat in the back of the SUV, reminding herself every few seconds that she should, under no circumstances, reach across the center seat and grab Brynn’s hand. Which was enticingly displayed, palm up, just begging for Hallie to shift her own arm a few inches over to take it within her own.
And Sydney, who was driving, kept giving Hallie these weird looks through the mirror. Like she was just waiting for Hallie to do something that proved whatever theory she’d drummed up in that pretty head of hers.
Suddenly, she was wishing that Sydney wasn’t taking her newfound involvement in Hallie’s life so seriously.
Hallie needed to stop that look. Pronto. She leaned forward and shoved her head between the driver and passenger seats. “So, why aren’t your parents planning the engagement party? Isn’t that usually how it goes?”
Sydney looked over at Reese, a look passing between the two of them.
“Your call, babe,” Sydney deferred.
Reese clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Well, we’ve been working very hard to manage people’s expectations.”
The exasperation in Reese’s tone heavily implied that it was not going well, which piqued Hallie’s interest. Honestly, it could be good to throw herself into someone else’s drama for a change. Get out of her own head a little bit. “Tell me more…”
“Apparently, there are a lot of rules about how a weddingshouldbe done,” Sydney interjected. “And between my parents and Reese’s mom?—”
“And my father,” Reese said, clearly annoyed before adding, “I’d take meddling but lovable parents over him any day.”
This was news to Hallie. “I thought that he was persona non grata in the Devereux-King household. Wow, that’s really a mouthful,” she said with a laugh.
Neither Sydney nor Reese seemed to appreciate the humor. Which left Hallie to ease awkwardly back against her seat, shooting Brynn a questioning look. She only responded with an adorable, confused shrug. Clearly, she was just as confused.
“Tripp Devereux has, unfortunately, found out about the engagement,” Sydney said, clearly frustrated on her fiancée’s behalf.
What a complicated web of relationships Sydney was sitting smack dab in the middle of. One that she, Hallie Thatcher, was nowintimatelyentangled in.
Really, they needed a diagram or something.
From the back seat, Hallie could see Reese rubbing at her brow. “I’m not sure what about me corporate-raiding his entire portfolio of properties screams that I’d love for us to catch up at some point, but he’s been relentless. For whatever reason, he thinks that I still have interest in having a relationship with him.”
Hallie was in awe of the women she found herself surrounded by. They were modern-day marvels who were not to be trifled with. Brynn, who’d dumped Grant’s ass in a spectacular fashion. Reese, who, being a better person than Hallie, hadn’t done anything to punish her father but had sure been willing to swoop in and buy out his company when the opportunity had presented itself. And Sydney, who’d been misused and led astray by Grant, but who, after accepting that her tennis career was over, had found a whole new future for herself. A much better future than she’d ever have had shackled to Grant Devereux IV.
And even though normally Hallie would have felt small in comparison, she didn’t let herself shrink. Because while one half of her situation with Brynn was that Brynn needed to decide what she wanted, Hallie also had work to do. She wasn’t naive enough to think that her resistance to an incredible woman who wanted to give her the world was healthy. One of these days, she’d have to stare down her feelings of inadequacy and punch them in the face. Metaphorically, of course.
“What’s he been doing?” Hallie asked, knowing that there was no floor to Tripp’s descent into the primordial ooze.
Sydney grabbed Reese’s hand, and they interlaced their fingers before Sydney gave it a comforting squeeze. She looked in the mirror again, meeting Hallie’s stare. “Do you know that people are encouraged to set passwords with all of their vendors just so someone can’t call and change the plans or get information?”
In some ways, Sydney really was a sweet summer child. Hallie had heard horror stories from guests over the years who’d been in town for weddings. It was honestly the biggest reason that she’d staved off hosting them at The Stone’s Throw.
A wedding could make a perfectly rational, sane person do some incredibly crazy things. Now, consider what it could make an already irrational, insane person like Tripp Devereux do. Hallie shuddered at the thought.
“Sara is also heavily pushing a request fromPeopleMagazine to do a feature spread on the wedding. Just so no one thinks that Reese is the only one bringing trouble to the party,” Sydney admitted.
Sara was Sydney’s former agent, whom Hallie was pretty sure maintained hope that Sydney would come back to the world of tennis announcing, a job vertical which she’d had a brief stint in a few months ago.
